Markets, schools, large and small-scale businesses bore the brunt. Parents stopped their wards from going to school because flying bullets did not spare children. Prominent citizens, concealing their identity, abandoned their cosy mansions and took refuge in shanties in the many waterfronts of the capital city. The volcano of violence equally hit even residents of the shanties, which harboured a crucial percentage of militants. They rose against themselves, killing at will.

It was a reminder of the turmoil in the black township of Soweto in the dark days of apartheid South Africa. Deaths were recorded in large number on a daily basis. The mortuaries were filled with unclaimed corpses because the living that would have claimed them dreaded the streets at any hour of the day.

Many of such corpses were buried in mass graves. The security groups were helpless because the headquarters and branch offices of these outfits were equally attacked with monstrous venom. Policemen and policewomen were killed in their offices with impunity. It became frightening and “forbidden” for police officers to move around the streets in uniform.

The police and army commands chose to defend their territories, leaving the unarmed and hapless civilians in the cold.
To your tents oh Port Harcourt, so it seemed. It was a season of anomy. Foreign nationals fled in droves and the ‘big men’ with fat bank accounts relocated outside the state. So many people asked whether there was a government in the state. If there was, its authority ended in the walls of Government House because the massively armed militants ruled the streets.

The day, however, arrived when violence peaked. The military rolled out their tanks, while the Air Force seized the sky. The war had started and the battleground was Marine Base and Gborokiri. The leader of the street and creek gangs, Soboma George, ordered his men to fight back. When the guns went silent many of the brigands lay motionless. Soboma fled. He was quoted afterwards as saying that he did not know that his base was being attacked by the Nigerian military.

A few days later, a dusk to dawn curfew was slammed on the city. The Joint Task Force (JTF) moved in and barricades were erected at intervals of 10 miles. Residents were made to raise their hands ‘in surrender’ as they walked across the checkpoints.

The people had been conquered by the militants and military. Top military brass from Lagos and Abuja arrived the state for top security meetings. Commerce as well as production of goods and services nose-dived. As the battle against the peoples’ enemies was being won, political and traditional leaders engaged in another war of words. The reason for the no-love-lost between the grassroots managers was a direct consequence of the threats by government to demolish the shanties. Its argument was pegged on the reasons that living in the waterfronts debase humanity and aesthetics of Port Harcourt.

There was also the suggestion that the waterfronts were hideouts for miscreants, unrepentant ex-jail birds, negative militants and all types of lawbreakers. Ethnic nationality leaders cried wolf, saying it was ethnic cleansing. The Federal Government was encouraged to declare a state of emergency in the state. The once united Rivers State became polarized on ethnic divide and it was between the Ikwerre and the Ijaw. The Ogoni and others stood aside and watched.

Suddenly, on October 25th, 2007, the city was brought to a grinding halt when words hit town that the Supreme Court had ruled that Mr. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi be sworn-in immediately as governor of Rivers State. Those who heard it through radio were shocked while those who got the news second-hand dismissed it as ‘total lie’.

But it was true. He was quickly sworn-in the following day. Amaechi commenced duty by calming frail nerves. First, he dumped the dress pattern, flowing gown and resource control hat, of the old order, which he patronised for eight years.

The man then went to church where he told God that he would never forget the special favour bestowed on him over the return of his stolen mandate. He travelled to Delta State to pay homage to the leader of the Ijaw, Chief Edwin K Clark. The man and another elder statesman Chief Alabo T.O. Graham-Douglas had championed the state of emergency campaigns against the annulled government. While encouraging the JTF to chase the militants and criminals beyond the creeks and into the ocean, he slackened the curfew and life in the city once more took an upward drive.

In the political scene Amaechi kicked out the state electoral commission set up by his predecessor and told the selected council chairmen to forget their dubious mandate. Both commission officials and the bogus chairmen went to court and lost.
He conducted elections into councils without noticeable rancour. Not wanting to associate with contractor-politician he banned such portfolio-carrying men into Government House.

Without warning, he demolished Rainbow Town and partnered with a bank and private entrepreneurs to rebuild the place. He, however, gave breathing space to residents of the shanty communities at the numerous waterfronts, warning that they would be relocated at the appropriate time.

Tackling the acute shortage of housing in the city, he built an office complex for the state security services to enable them to work well in fighting the criminals in the land. Amaechi and his kitchen cabinet then moved to Iriebe, where he commenced a satellite town as well as low-cost housing in all the 23 councils of the state. A new Port Harcourt City is currently in the offing.

On education, he said the system was at the brink of collapse, therefore it needed immediate attention. To this end, he declared a state of emergency in the education sector.

The state owned University is being scheduled for a new site while the college of education is well funded and has achieved 100 percent accreditation in its course and 80 per cent for its degree awarding courses. Primary and secondary schools are being restructured, causing teachers in the area to be reshaped too.